


Cold

by tehmoonofficial



Series: TUA Holiday [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Five all alone in the apocalypse :(, Gen, TUA Holiday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:41:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21654679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tehmoonofficial/pseuds/tehmoonofficial
Summary: It's cold. It's fuckingcold, and Five has to laugh at the empty air.
Series: TUA Holiday [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1560058
Comments: 16
Kudos: 23





	Cold

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of the TUA Winter Holiday Prompts list on my tumblr! See the list at @tehmoonofficial on tumblr! This prompt is Hot Chocolate. :D

It’s cold. It’s fucking _cold_ , and Five has to laugh at the empty air.

His distorted sound is the only thing for miles and miles.

According to the calendar he’s been keeping, it’s December something-something. A few full moons since _the arrival date_ and some flurries have told him that. There’s something funny about the fact that the world continues to spin when everyone else on it is dead. A constant when everything else is gone. He vaguely remembers when apocalypse cults were around for Y2K---what would have happened if they were right? Would he eventually have found someone else? Will _he find someone else?_

His fingers are numb even though he has gloves. A jet-black pair he took from a sporting goods store. They shake, blocks of ice, as they push towards a dented tin.

A dented tin. He finds it while scavenging what looked like a salvageable house. It turns out, he was right about the house being salvageable. In front of him lies a wooden cupboard, charred and blackened at the edges, with its bottom-right corner digging into shattered linoleum tiling. One of its doors hangs loosely off the hinges. The other is nowhere to be seen. But it’s not the scrap wood that Five cares about; no, it’s the gold inside. 

Not _actual_ gold. A tin of hot chocolate. There’s canned food, too, which is just as valuable, but it’s the _hot cocoa_ that he snatches up as he shakes and his gaze scans the tin over and over, asking again and again, _Is this real?_

He pops the lid. The smell of cocoa engulfs him, and he slumps. _Holy shit._ A nearly-full container of hot chocolate powder meets his eyes. 

See, there’s coffee, and then there’s _hot cocoa._ Coffee is what Five chugs when he needs to get something done, and his body is just a machine that needs to keep working. Hot chocolate is what he savors for as long as possible, soaking in the warmth of the mug when even Mom had the cool touch of a robot. Hot chocolate is what he looks forward to on rare occasions. 

Chill winter winds easily defeat his coat. _It_ is _nearly the holidays… right? That’s a rare occasion._ And the apocalypse calls for some comfort. 

The pale winter sun is far on the horizon by the time the fire is lit. Its flames struggle for air. Choking. Five throws in another dry newspaper. The fire crackles, and he leans over to pick up an old, rusty pot. It’s set down on his lap, and he unscrews a canteen. Water spills into the pot, a few snowflakes catching the liquid. Five makes a silent prayer to someone he’s sure hasn’t helped him at all that this will work. 

It heats and Five waits. His eyes never leave the pot.

All of the powder falls into the already sparse springwater. Five stirs it with his finger. It’s hot, but he doesn’t care. For a second, as the cocoa powder and the water mix, Five isn’t in the apocalypse. He’s home with Vanya, Ben, Mom, and all the others. He’s in the kitchen; Mom tells him exactly how much hot chocolate powder to add. He teleports over to the stepstool and grabs a tablespoon. He scoops just enough into the mug in front of him. Mom thanks him and he steps down patiently. 

Five swallows. His eyes look as haunted as Klaus’ do. As Klaus’ _used to,_ that is. 

He trembles as he carefully pours the hot chocolate back into his canteen.

At first, everything is fine. The mixture pours into what he’ll drink it from. Then---

Then.

Then, he coughs.

The pot goes flying with the gut-wrenching noise, hot cocoa with it. 

There it goes. 

_There it goes_ , he thinks to himself as he ignores his vision going blurry and face getting wet.

Five looks into the canteen. There are a few drops of hot chocolate in there. Just a few. 

He chugs them like there’s no tomorrow. In the most literal sense, there isn’t one---not for the rest of humanity. 

It’s cold. It’s fucking _cold,_ and Five has to laugh at the empty air.


End file.
